支付市场中的交换费、接入定价和次级收购方（英）

BIS Working Papers No 1163 Interchange fees, access pricing and sub-acquirers in payment markets by Jose Aurazo Monetary and Economic Department January 2024 JEL classification: G21, L11, L4, L5. Keywords: Access pricing, interchange fees, payment cards, payment facilitators, two-sided markets BIS Working Papers are written by members of the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements, and from time to time by other economists, and are published by the Bank. The papers are on subjects of topical interest and are technical in character. The views expressed in them are those of their authors and not necessarily the views of the BIS. This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). © Bank for International Settlements 2024. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may be reproduced or translated provided the source is stated. ISSN 1020-0959 (print) ISSN 1682-7678 (online) Interchange fees, access pricing and sub-acquirers inpayment markets∗Jose Aurazo†January 2024AbstractSub-acquirers, also known as payment facilitators, have played a vital role in fostering mer-chant digital payments acceptance, particularly in developing countries. To provide accessto digital payments (ie card acceptance) to merchants, sub-acquirers do not have a directconnection with the card network but through the acquirer. This paper aims to study theoptimal pricing in the payments industry when: i) the sub-acquirers and acquirers competein the same downstream market, and ii) the sub-acquirers enter niche markets that are notcovered yet (eg micro and small-sized merchants). In the first scenario, a conflict arises asthe acquirer might have incentives to deter entry by charging prohibitive access fees. Inthe second scenario, the acquirer obtains an extra profit from granting access to the cardnetwork for the sub-acquirers, and welfare increases. That said, the regulator can play arelevant role in the first scenario by setting an access fee to allow socially but not privatelydesirable entry.Keywords: Access pricing, Interchange fees, Payment cards, Payment facilitators, Two-sided marketsJEL Classification: G21, L11, L4, L5∗I acknowledge financial support from the FIT IN Initiative led by the Toulouse School of Economicsin partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Most parts of this paper were done during mymaster’s studies at TSE (2021-2022). I am grateful to Carola Müller, Raul Morales, and Anahi Rodriguezfor our very insightful discussions as research team. I thank Matthieu Bouvard, Carola Müller, Jon Frost,Yang Ji (discussant) and the participants at the FIT IN Initiative: Workshop on Mobile Money Interoper-ability (Toulouse, 2022) and II Regional Conference on Payments and FMIs (Bogota, 2023) for constructivecomments. The opinions shared in this paper are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of theBank for International Settlements or the Central Reserve Bank of Pe